Every epistemology presupposes principles about how one thing participates another.
puns as the humming of wit
Technology changes how we classify resources.
The judgment of taste is based partly on a conceptual profile of human nature and of the educated/informed/experienced human being.
For any notation, ask what functions each aspect of the notation is actually doing.
NB: Kant takes the three kinds of antinomies of pure reason to prove that objects of sense are not things themselves, and holds that they are necessary for that because otherwise reason could not accept such a restrictive principle.
Nature fashions satisfaction for its forms.
the ethopoeic aspect of belief and argument
For the teaching of philosophy, there is only a modus, not a methodus.
the mean between higher culture (large-mindedness and refinement) and simple nature (unaffectedness and spontaneous originality) as a principle for good taste
We derive the notion of 'nature' from the notion of 'that to which things tend'.
the externality of the world as (1) its multiperspectivality, (2) its mediatorial character, (3) its kinaesthetic character, (4) its metrical character
buzz, distraction, veil
For every moral theory, ask how it would be used by a wicked person trying to cover his wickedness.
the World as the form of human intentionality in aversion from God, the Flesh as the form of human intentionality in conversion to lesser goods
final cause → cycle → systemic end → self-organizing system
An extrinsic end for a part may be an intrinsic end for the whole.
beauty, sublimity, order, and design as guides for abduction
collections of aphorisms as diffuse arguments
hypotheses as teleological ventures of theoretical reason
experiments as teleological ventures of practical reason
Nothing is a mechanism except with regard to some possible range of uses.
Any thoroughgoing moral antirealism implies some form of might-makes-right, the kind of might being determined by the kind of antirealism.
beauty : fine art :: design : experiment :: sublimity : ?
-- Kant might perhaps say moral sacrifice
the brain as a teleologial engine
right to life: life is starting-point of politics
right to liberty: liberty, properly understood, is the condition for appropriate political means
right to pursue happiness: happiness, properly understood, sit he end of politics, so pursuit of it is a requirement
a civil-theological argument for positing the existence of God as part of political life
(1) Rational politics promotes with all of its powers the greatest prosperity with the fullness of justice.
(2) For this to be accomplished, there must be an affinity of these (greatest prosperity, fullest justice) in the world itself.
(3) It is therefore reasonable, as a matter of practical reason, for a polity to posit what will make this possible in principle, and act accordingly.
(4) Only a just cause of the natural world -- a Governor of the world -- could make this possible.
(5) Therefore, etc.
the great republic as a sublime idea
The physical world must be such that it is consistent in principle with the possibility of moral life, and moral life must be such that it is in principle possible to live in the physical world.
appreciation, protection, and development of the beautiful and the sublime as a civil/political end (one aspect of common good)
moral law as 'a power of being in a community of thought with other men, however distant from us'
"The Father begot the Son in such a way that the Spirit of truth proceeds from the Son just as he proceed from the Father." Peter Damian (Ep. 81.6)
"He abides entirely in the Father, entirely in the Son; He proceeds entirely from the Father and proceeds entirely from the Son."
reality as an intrinsic power to affect and to effect (in this sense it admits of more and less)
The baptismal character does not only give the power to receive the sacrifice of praise but also to offer it for oneself and for others, for redemption, for health & wellbeing, and for homage to God.
'Improving life' doesn't have much of a coherent meaning unless there is something higher than us to give stable direction to it across many actions.
For science to 'serve life', ethics must have priority over it.
drab as an aesthetic concept
-- note that it is inconsistent with sublimity, beauty, and prettiness, but it is not necessarily ugly (althougher perhaps drab on its own has an uglyish tendency)
-- a question: how does drab relate to bland? Bland is perhaps a broader concept, but perhaps almost as inconsistent with ugly as it is with sublime.
-- drab is always associated with dull, but dull seems broader; it is an antonym of bright, but not an exact one -- the same with lively/spirited
--etymologically it originaly indicated the yellow-brown of undyed cloth (i.e., the color of drab, the cloth itself)
Marx perhaps underestimates the inertial durability of theory to outlast people's needs.
"The very status of the human implies fraternity and the idea of the human race." Levinas
Isidore takes knowledge in the mind and strength in the body both to be examples of habit.
the history of philosophy as a system (or ecosystem) of teleologies
Forbid the state from claiming one moral domain and it will claim another; the political attraction of the idea of being powerful for right, so that one's exercised power is rightness, at least in one's own eyes, is too great for any means by which you would maintain a purely procedural mechanism for government.
The sublimity or beauty of something is in itself a reason not to sully or harm it. It is, of course, not a reason definitive in itself, but it sets up a presumption; it suggests one needs more than a mere reason of convenience or preference.
arguments as expressive of a sense of life
"Medicina either protects the body or restores health; its subject matter is concerned with illnesses and wounds." Isidore
-- three types of cures for illness: (1) pharmacia/medicamina, (2) chirurgia/operatio manum, (3) diaeta/regula
"Medicine is called Second Philosophy."
"It is one and the same thing whether God is called Eternal, Immortal, Incorruptible, or Immutable." Isidore
You need a faith that will not fail to build a love that will not die.
The remedy for the problems of polarization is large-scale development of means and mechanisms whereby people can trust in some domain those with whom they disagree.
Opportunistic appeals are parasitic on non-opportunistic appeals.
relativity of sameness of particle
Why A rather than B? Two kinds of answers
(1) tendency to A in particular
(2) tendency to A or B with impediment to B
music as vocabulary formation
Contrastive explanation requires an adequate classification, and more than other kinds of explanation. If I ask, "Why A rather than B?" it is entirely reasonable to reply that this is not a division natural to the world, but simply an arbitrarily imposed one and that the question should be "Why A rather than C?", C being the more natural class with which to contrast A, because B is not really relevant, or not well-formed as an opposing class. E.g., if I say, "Why did you eat lunch rather than fly to Pluto?", it's entirely reasonable to say just that the latter wasn't one of the options available or considered, and that he question sheds no explanatory light on anything because the contrast class proposed is arbitrary and irrelevant.
"A civitas is a multitude of people united by a bond of fellowship." Isidore
those who take the name of "Christian" from faith, from honor, from profit, or from convenience
Choice plays a conceptual role in modern Western society in many ways analogous to the role played in earlier Western societies by 'honor'.
"Just war is declared and carried out for the sake of reclaiing property or warding off enemies." Isidore
"Four things happen in war: pugna, fuga, victoria, and pax."
"An army is destroyed in two ways: internicio (extermination) and dispersio (scattering)."
bonus → benulus → bellus
"Two main conditions must be met for the pathetically sublime (Pathetischerhabene): first, a vivid image of suffering, in order to awaken the emotion of compassion with the proper strength, and second, an image of resistance to the suffering, in order to call into consciousness the mind's inner freedom. Only by virtue of the first does the object become pathetic, only by virtue of the second does the pathetic become at the same time something sublime." Schiller
accountable to vs. accountable for vs. accountable with
The work of teaching proceeds from the teacher through a doctrinal presentation.
potuit-decuit as the structure of antecedent credibility
illative sense, evidential regard, vigilance against error, moderation in inference
Resistance against temptation is something that is built in layers.
To consider things only in concept is a defective form of inquiry.
positive rights → natural rights → first endower of rights
The spontaneous expressions of one generation become the stylized symbols of another.
